The Study That Should Scare EVERY Leader | Lucas Sherraden

I ran across a frightening study as I was doing the Uncaged Leader stuff. Tasha Urich out of the Harvard Business School did a study on self-awareness, and 95% of Americans believe that they're completely self-aware, but only 10% actually are.

He has been not only a pastor, he's been a very successful real estate professional, leadership coach, brokerage owner, you name it, this man's a rock star.

We're at a basketball gym. My kids were all playing basketball, and I have 2 middle school girls and a high school boy, and that's how they played their game. So They're bookended. So in between the games, somebody came up and says, hey, Mr. Shred, how's the real estate industry? And I said, it's great, because that's what all realtors say. It's great. It's awesome. And they go, no, how's your business? I said, as if I will ever sell a house. Ha ha ha ha. And at that time, my 8th grade daughter Danielle comes up and hears that comment. She puts her hand on my arm, looks up at me with her brown eyes in her basketball uniform. She says, you are a good real estate agent, aren't you, Dad? And in that moment, I answered her. I said, yes, sweetheart, I am. I want to be real clear to your audience. I'm giving away 100% of the profits of this book to stopping human trafficking.

Hey guys, welcome back to One Part Lion, One Part Lamb, where, as you know, we help leaders rise, lead, and last. And today's no different. I got my good friend Lucas Sheridan here to help us understand what it makes— or what it takes, I should say— to uncage a leader. Now, leadership is all over this man. He has been not only a pastor, he's been a very successful real estate professional. Uh, gosh, I'm telling you right now, the leadership coach, brokerage owner, you name it, this man's a rock star, and we're gonna get a lot of value from today. Lucas, welcome to the show, bro. It's good to see you, man.

Well, thanks, Stephen. Thank you for those kind words. Appreciate that.

Oh, man. Well, you know, it's not every day I get to hang out with my friends. You know, I had the fortunate privilege of being one of the endorsements on your book, and I was super excited about it because I don't do that very often. I only do that when I believe in the leader and the content that leader is providing, just because I find that reputation is like super hard to earn. It's super easy to lose.

Easy to lose. Yeah.

So I think one of the things I'd love to do is we're about vulnerability here on the show, and I appreciate you making arrangements to come on virtually with us today.

Yeah.

The thing that I struggle with or things I see in leadership all the time is they're not aware of what's actually running in the background and how that background program or that background music, if you will, is causing them to dance a certain way or act a certain way. And I know that you obviously were heavily involved in ministry for a number of years, especially all the way up into what, about 2008, I think it was. And, you know, pivoted to real estate. I'd love to kind of know, like, how— what you discovered during the 2008 experience, also the real estate experience that kind of, well, not just prepared you to write this particular book, but more importantly, like, really live it out.

Yeah. And what you just said about the fundamental problem in leadership and honestly, as human beings, is we're not aware of the stuff that's actually running our lives. We've got an operating system that by and large goes unchallenged unless we have a traumatic event. And so for me, it was challenging coming out of ministry. All I had known was preaching crusades and pastoring. I started preaching when I was 16. I've got a Bachelor of Science in Pastoral Ministries, which means I'm pretty much unemployable from anybody else, right? It's like, I'm not going to go start a siding company. I'm not going to build a house or anything. Like, I'm unemployable. And I watched three episodes of House Hunters and thought real estate would be a great career, which silly me. But my last year in ministry, I flew 125,000 miles, and I was missing everything of my kids, right?

Yeah.

And I just got off the stage in Andhra Pradesh, preaching to about 50,000 people in India, and I'm Skyping my kid, which tells you the age. I've just dated myself, but I'm Skyping my kids. It's all right.

You're in good company, bro. You're all good.

I'm Skyping my kids, telling Caleb, you know, do your math. But Danielle, practice your violin. And when I closed my MacBook that night, I realized that was in January of '08. That's all parenting was going to look like for me. And for me, God, I felt like it was Lord God just spoke to me and said, you know, you've gone, you've traveled the world and played with everybody else's kids. Now it's time to come home, play with your own. Yeah. And so making that transition, Stephen, I wish I could say it was really easy, but I joined real estate in 2008. And if anybody recalls any kind of history, that's—

You picked the optimal time is what we're saying.

That is the absolute Do not join industry of all times because, you know, we were in a man-made banking crisis. Every other listing, it felt like, was foreclosed or short sales. And I got in and we went $100,000 in credit card debt just like that.

Wow.

I was using credit cards to buy gas and groceries, lines of credit to pay minimums on credit cards, was thinking maybe I need to pick up a few preaching gigs just for money. But then do I really want to be the preacher that's preaching for money? But that's all I knew, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. There was a moment, and I refer to it in the book, The Uncaged Leader, there was an exact moment. It was February of 2009. I was standing out, waking up like at nighttime. So I was waking up in panic attacks. It was just like 2 o'clock in the morning. I just knew I was gonna get foreclosed on or have to declare bankruptcy. And we were at a high school, we were at a basketball gym, my kids were all playing basketball. And I have 2 middle school girls and a high school boy. And that's how they played their game. So They're bookended. So in between the games, somebody came up and says, "Hey, Mr. Shreddin, how's the real estate industry?" And I said, "It's great," because that's what all realtors say. It's great. It's awesome. Yeah. And they go, "No, how's your business?" I said, and I love self-deprecating humor because I've got a lot of material here to work with. I love it to a fault. I say things I probably shouldn't say about myself. But I said something to this nature, Stephen. I said, "As if I will ever sell a house." Ha ha ha ha! And at that time, my eighth grade daughter Danielle comes up and hears that comment. And she puts her hand on my arm, looks up at me with her brown eyes in her basketball uniform. She says, you are a good real estate agent, aren't you, Dad? And in that moment, I answered her. I said, yes, sweetheart, I am. And I finished the statement in my head, and I wasn't 10 seconds ago. Because I realized it wasn't the economy and it wasn't the market that was my challenge. It was the stuff that was going inside my head that I was unaware of.

Mm-hmm.

I could— it's not the bullet you see coming at you that kills you.

Yeah.

And I'm concerned as leaders and as people, we have so much stuff that we're not aware of. Why do we prefer this versus that? And why do we want this and want that? And we're not questioning like, where did the preference come from in the first place? And so I had to understand, like I would say stuff like, I'm not gonna do any cold calls 'cause I'm a relationship guy. I would, I'd say that very proudly. I'm not, I'm not gonna do any prospecting calls 'cause, well, the truth is if you're really a relationship guy, shouldn't the idea of calling 20 strangers every day excite you because you potentially could make a new relationship.

Yeah.

So I wasn't a relationship guy. I just had a programming going on that stopped me from doing the activities I needed to do in order to fund for my family. So that's what began the journey. It's like, yeah, what do I need to believe? What stories do I need to tell myself? What programming do I need to hijack so that I can get the outcomes that I feel that my family— my family— I owed my family?

Yeah. You know what, there's so many different parallels to your and my journeys and really different but very similar ways. You know, one of the things I tell leaders all the time now is, you know, we have a model called the 5 Constraints, and the, the second one of the constraints is called ignorance, right? And on a surface level, you would think, well, ignorance is the stuff you don't know, right? And there's— and that is one version of it.

Yeah.

There's the other version that's more toxic and more challenging, and you just, you just walked on it and lived it yourself, which is Knowing what you need to know, but also resisting because of what it'll require you to change.

Yeah, that's right.

Right. So just, you know, also, you know, we have another constraint, one of the ones we call arrogance, right?

Yep, that's right.

And I, you know, it's funny, I, as I'm thinking about downturns, like I'm working with some business leaders right now and I, like you, I've been through numerous downturns, uphill battles, reversals. You know, 2008, my company first was devastated by the 2008 downturn. And then because we were out of debt and I listened to God, basically God told me in a dream to get out of debt like 6 months earlier and I did it.

That'll work.

Yeah. And then literally 2 months later, 3 months later, we were getting all the business because we were prepared.

Yeah.

Like all my competitors were, had, you know, were heavily leveraged in debt and many of them don't exist even now. And what was really interesting about that, that whole season was It taught me a lot about what it means to operate with a healthy mind and a healthy heart during times of, call it crisis or trial or struggle. And I say all that to say that, you know, between the pandemic, 2008, oh gosh, there's been a bunch, right?

Right.

Of times, an embezzlement thing I went through, like all these different things that almost took me out. So I say that to say that I was working with some leaders recently. And historically they've been winning on paper for a long time. You know, they've done pretty well. And recently the last 2 years specifically, and it's gotten progressively more difficult because of the economic conditions that are related to housing industry as well. I find that there's a very specific negative mindset. So whereas I would say something and, hey, you guys are doing a lot of the right things, you just need to keep doing them. They will bear fruit. It's going to happen. Be patient. Like, keep going, basically. And, you know, several times I've had them kind of respond, well, you don't understand about this market and you don't understand about this customer and you don't understand about that leader and you don't under— you just don't understand. I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I feel like I understand more than you realize and I'm giving you more wisdom than you realize.

Yeah. So good. It's so true. It's like, I don't know, Stephen, somewhere along the journey I realized That I, I had lost— I heard this term and it was foreign to me, especially coming out of ministry, because we didn't use these— this kind of language in ministry. But I had lost agency to my preferences. And when I talk about agency, it means I actually now am responsible for things. So I, I'll use a silly illustration when I do keynote speeches where it's like, if I have 2 tubs of ice cream, a chocolate— a tub of chocolate and a tub of vanilla, which one are you going to choose, Stephen, just out of curiosity?

Uh, I'm gonna go vanilla just this go around.

Yeah. Okay. So why, why vanilla this go around?

Uh, you know what? I just, for some reason, I, I like, I have a preference over chocolate. Like, I, I like them both. In, in a perfect world, I'd have them both, but you know.

Yeah. Why choose?

Right?

So here's, here's the literal million-dollar question. So in that silly little illustration, did your preference make the decision or did you? Because when we realize that, like, our preferences actually choose what food we eat, what colors of clothes we put on, what cars we drive, um, what, what kind of sodas we drink, uh, what, you know, So, it's when we understand that our preferences, because our brain craves efficiency and certainty, our preferences are making decisions and we don't even have agency over the preference, a choice of ice cream. Well, think about that. You've got people who are convinced it's the market. Well, that's their preference and fear speaking.

Yeah.

And they're not even aware. They think that they're talking truth and you, and they have to make you the bad guy because you, if I ever find myself talking to a wise person saying, you don't understand, I realize, oh my gosh. My preferences are making decisions so much so that I'm blinded to awareness. I ran across a frightening study as I was doing the Uncaged Leader stuff, research. Tasha Urich out of the Harvard Business School did a study on self-awareness, and 95% of Americans believe that they're completely self-aware.

Sorry.

But only, but only 10% actually are. So, I'm going to go on a plane tomorrow, fly to Portland, Oregon, where I'm going to speak to about 140 people in a room. In that room of 140 people, only 14 people are actually self-aware. And everyone in the room, 140 people, all think they're one of the 14. They're convinced everybody else lacks self-awareness. When I wake up every day saying, I'm a student of even myself, and why did I, why did I get on this podcast? Why did I mow my yard the way that I did? Why did I choose this? Why did I choose that? I get agency back. And once I have agency, I can actually now have the power to make a change in however I approach life.

Yeah, yeah, no, so good. You know, it's— it was interesting, one of the things I just, I just wrote down here as we're chatting is, um, when it comes to preferences, is self-awareness, I would assume, plays a role in understanding whether or not that preference is healthy or not healthy. There's a difference between, you know, picking up a drug versus picking up a protein bar.

Yeah, I think— here's, here, and here's— I've had this actual debate on a podcast I was on recently because that person said, but we're taught all of our lives to Develop habits so we don't even have to think about it. We just go to the gym. We just do the cold plunge. We just go for the run, and we don't even think about it. Yes, autopilot is a powerful tool when it serves us. But when we are experiencing outside results, failures or successes is just feedback. It's nothing about your worth or your smart. It's just feedback. So if I am swinging at a pitch and consistently missing it, that's when I start to challenge. Like, do I have a belief system going on that's prohibiting me from breaking through this wall, breaking through this? barrier break. Because I— you think about it, growing up, if you're a perfectionist, that served you for a while.

Yeah.

Until it doesn't serve you.

Yeah.

Maybe you grew up and you figured, you know, the world's a scary place, so I'm going to over-control and micromanage everything. And that serves you for a while.

Yeah, that was me.

Until it doesn't serve you any longer, right? Boy, I love the applause. I love the attaboys. And guess what? That serves you for a while until it no longer serves you. And what I would say, that every cage in yesterday's world of those belief systems, of those stories, probably served you to get you to this point. It just may not get you to a world of unlimited possibilities in your destiny. Your history doesn't always get you to your destiny until you come face to face with current reality. This story no longer serves me.

Yeah, you know, what's really interesting about that is, you know, self-awareness, to your point. I think one of the Bible talks about This is how you know you're actually pursuing wisdom is when you know you have none. Yeah. Right. So I think about my self-awareness. This is like a skill set and a muscle I'm constantly working out, constantly reframing, constantly talking about how I talk, how I show up for myself, my friends, my family, colleagues, not getting dysregulated when everybody else around me might be getting dysregulated.

That's right.

And it's been a really persistent battle in a beautiful way in many respects. But one of the things I was thinking about, as you were mentioning the importance of self-awareness and/or not having it.

Yeah.

Is just the understanding that I don't have it. And there are subconscious programs, the caging, if you will, in my, in my world that were causing me to behave a specific way. I mean, I was thinking about even re— like my first 20-plus years in business, right? You know, coming, you know, developing from being homeless and all the things like that was all will, hustle, and grind and grit and God's grace.

Yeah.

I mean, it was literally, it was, it was, it was no, I didn't have a college education. Like I, I didn't even, I barely, I didn't graduate high school technically. I got a GED. Yeah.

Right.

I had no formal training on leadership, no formal training on finance, no formal training on sales or marketing or all these different types of things. And that did serve me on the surface for about 5 or 6 years.

That's right.

Sheer will, showing up, driving the nails, driving the truck, and, you know, going to the job site, working all day on the job site, at lunchtime, putting— going, going back, wiping myself down with like clean cloths, putting on some like a polo and some khakis, going and doing an estimate, coming back, taking that back off, going back to work than staying up till midnight doing quotes and bids and all kinds of stuff. It's just, it's, but at the same time, about a decade or 15 years in, if I'm honest, I was a terrible leader.

Yeah.

I had never been trained to lead. I did not know how to lead out of anything other than dominance and control. Right. Even though my intent of my heart was pure, which is interesting because I feel like they say that we judge ourselves by our intent and other people judge us by our actions.

That's right.

And what I think is really interesting is in that moment, I had a good heart. I wanted my team to be successful. I wanted to see them achieve their goals. But when they would talk to me, if I felt threatened, like I had, you know, I had people that were working for me, with me, um, that, you know, had MBA after their name and CPA after their name and all these different acronyms. And I felt insecure like nobody's business. Yeah. So I would shut down all the good ideas, which means I was actually holding the company back.

Yeah.

Right. And I feel like leaders in general, I'm not sure, maybe, and this is where the question comes in. Like, I intuitively, when I get one-on-one with a leader, we can pick it apart and help, like, awaken something so they can see it clearly.

Yeah.

But I don't know that I have a single technique or a strategy that helps a leader awaken to themselves because it depends on how much resistance they have.

Yeah.

Like, how resistant are you to seeing this very thing about yourself And then why are you fighting the resistance? Like, I had to say, well, I'm fighting, I'm resisting because I don't want to be seen as inadequate or unworthy, you know?

Yeah. I, I, well, number one, I think that you've, I, I think that the people who understand self-awareness is a journey and not a destination actually have a shot at this thing of self-awareness that they wake up every day and they fight for understanding what's underneath this, what's Behind, beside this. I think one of the challenges as leaders that we have is we don't understand it's about helping our people think of the way that they need to think. And so generally, as a leader, we're telling people that oftentimes we tell people what to do, or we tell them the actual thoughts that they should be thinking, because it serves our purpose. But we're not helping curate curiosity. We're not helping curate, unlock, you know, the person there. And so— And then you're wondering why you Well, then we wonder why we get formal compliance for short bursts of time, and then we have to go in and re-manage it. Because I think there's a huge conflation of management and leadership that we use those words interchangeably. They're 2 totally different things. Managers handle the chaos and make it organized. Leaders cast vision and say, here we're going to go, and I'm going to get buy-in, and I'm going to get people who are aligned with me because I've taught them how to think in ways that they need to think so they can get what they want when they want it. And that's the chore of leadership, is because I could do behavior modification. all day long.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's going to get formal compliance at best, and therefore you're going to always be a boss and a manager. But leaders, like the real leaders that I hang out with and that you hang out with, you call me up and I'm going to follow you off the end of the world. It's because I, I believe in you. I believe in leadership. I believe in our cause. Um, I think the greatest, like, biblical example of leadership is Moses and the children of Israel. Right? It's like, think about it. There were days that Moses would wake up and say, God, kill them all. There are other days that was— that God would wake up and say, I'm going to kill them all, and Moses would say, no, stop. So if God and Moses would have had a bad day on the same day, no Israel. But you think about that leadership task, is he had a bunch of people who all they knew was slavery. Now they're out in the wilderness and all they know how to do is think like a slave.

Yeah.

God had to systematically for 40 years Get the— it took God a moment to get the Israelites out of Egypt. It took him 40 years to get Egypt out of the Israelites and get that slaved, caged thinking out to where they could— think about this. Had the Israelites gone into Israel, uh, taken the Promised Land as slaves, we'd look totally different than today. They had to take the Promised Land as freed people. And I, I think that that was the mindset that God was attacking, even with the children of Israel.

Yeah, man. I love that example.

Hey, listen, you know what? I don't, my pastor doesn't come out very often in the real estate world, so I just—

Around your brothers, right?

There's my, there's my pastoral education, right?

No, I love that example because I can't tell you, I mean, you know, part of one of our, you know, one of the two of the other constraints are insecurity and fear that we model.

Yeah.

And more times than not, they're directly tied to a low self-worth and, and, you know, kind of in, in the insecurity timeframe or Just literally having a scarcity-based mindset.

That's right.

And I'm getting— look, I'm, I'm, as I'm, I'm not preaching at people, I'm saying I live this. Like, I, I just, I mean, just until the last probably 3 or 5 years, I've actually started to lean away from scarcity into— I wouldn't even call it abundance. I would just call it contentment. Right. And, and I, and that was a huge monumental shift for me because I, I've provide, prove, prove, prove, prove, go get it, go make it, go make it. Like, All this kind of stuff. I know one of the things that you mentioned in the book and the terminology is what we kind of been talking about a little bit, which is the awareness intelligence.

Yeah.

You know, but you also talk a lot about this concept of— I would call it catching yourself out, but you would call it, you know, kind of seeing the skill. So how does a leader become like— let's say we got some— we got somebody watching or listening right now and they're like, okay, I can see myself in what they're talking about a little bit.

Yeah. It's a step.

And we just need a little bit, right? Um, how would they begin the— in, you know, with using the Uncaged Leader frameworks and stuff like, how would they begin to shift and like, you know, and create a little momentum when, you know, using, um, maybe catching yourself out, you know, kind of thing?

Yeah, I, I think that the— like, I'm in a rush to do everything, Stephen. That's just the way I'm wired. I, I literally, right before this, I had lunch and microwave never hits 0:00 because for whatever reason I'm so impatient that thinks 4 or 5 seconds left, I could like that, it's gonna make difference in my life. Just insanely. But in order for us to get good at this, we have to do what I call the 5 o'clock formula in the book, but practice the pause. When I have an emotional trigger, or I catch myself wanting to over-control, or say, gosh, I'm getting the same result, or like, if there's a manager listening that you're at a hiring thing, and it seems like it's a revolving door, well, the problem probably isn't the people coming into your world, because you're the only constant in the world.

Yeah.

And so, it's to take a look and just ask yourself these questions. Just like, where's my DNA in it? What decisions am I making that's causing this? Where's my energy? It may not even be what you're doing in a tactic. It may be just an energy that you're giving off that nobody wants to follow you anywhere. It's like, who do I— the most important question I think as a leader is, who must I become in order to whatever the calling is, whatever the destiny is? Who must I become first in order to do that?

Yeah.

So, you and I have this deep, driven desire to make an impact on millions of people. The question isn't tactical first. The question is, who must you become first to deploy those tactics? Because I've— like, in the wealth journey, becoming a millionaire, it's— you don't have a million dollars to be a millionaire. You be a millionaire to have a million dollars.

I'm so glad you said that. I have a thought on that.

Yeah. So it's like— so I think that to answer your question, it's learning how to practice the pause. And, and self-reflect. There is a book written by a lady who probably doesn't have a real strong faith grid, but her name's Ellen Langer, called Mindfulness. And her, her contention is, have you ever driven from point— like from here to Kansas City and got to Kansas City? I'm like, I don't even remember the drive. You just thoughtlessly—

Yeah.

Mindlessly did that drive. That's how many of us are living our lives. We just crank, crank, go and go. And we're not thoughtful about every word, every interaction. We're not present to the— like, I'm very present to you right now. I'm very present that someone in your audience may catch ahold of this. Like, oh my gosh, I'm just mindlessly going through life.

Yeah.

Practice the pause and be mindful. What did I— like, my wife is a great reflection of my inner heart. It's like, because I let all down all my guards, I feel very safe with her. So that means she gets my irritation. She gets my annoyance.

Yeah, lucky her.

Yeah, yeah. Blessed woman. However, it's like, when that comes out, it's like, wait a second, where did that come from? Because I can't ever— no one ever on this planet could truthfully say you made me mad, because mad exists here. Mad doesn't exist out here. You did actions and I chose to be mad. Where did that come from? And if I could question and be curious, I could actually be wholehearted and be a leader.

Yeah, dude, that's so good. I literally had this one thought, like, I had a a young man. It wasn't even— I wouldn't even call him a client. I mean, he was just somebody I was trying to help because I could see he has enormous potential. And part of that was this idea where he said, well, how do I become said man? I want to do this, this, and this. How do I become the said man? And I felt like I had a little bit of an epiphany or a little bit of a Holy Spirit download in that when I was having that conversation, I was like, well, Actually, it's actually pretty easy. Sit down with a paper and a pen for the next 30 minutes and write out a day in the life of this man.

That's right.

Like, what do you think? How does he wake up? What does he do when he wakes up? Where does he go? How does he treat his family? How does he treat himself? How does he? How does he protect his health? How does he feed his mind? How does he da da da da? And I said, and then we and we kind of did it in two steps. So I said, just go write a day in the life and tell me all about tell me all about this man. Everything you know about him.

Right?

And I said, feel free to leave off the bells and whistles for now, like the car and the house and the travel and whatever. Just leave that off. It's like he came back and he's like, okay, I did the assignment. I said, well, great. Read it off to me. And this guy's like, you know, the guy gets up, spends half an hour a day first thing in the morning with him and his creator God, spends another half of the morning really kind of like getting his priorities kind of situated, spends another half of the morning getting regulated and grounded before he steps into his day, spends another hour at the— going to a gym or someplace to working out and getting movement. And then he tackles his day in 15 increments, like throughout with meetings and stuff that we got to the end of the day and he is like, yeah. I said, bro, that's great. He's like, okay, what do I do now? I said, just start doing that tomorrow morning.

Probably solved. Yeah. It reminds me like when I came to Kansas City, I took over a Keller Williams office here in, in the Kansas City area that was routinely number 6 in the local MLS in sales. And I remember talking to my coach who helped me form a lot. Mike Forza helped me formulate a lot about the Uncaged Leader and the story model and the different things. And I remember he— I said, okay, what do I need to do? What do I need to do? He goes, you're asking the wrong question. He said, ask this question: who must you become in order to lead the number one brokerage in Kansas City?

Hmm.

And so I did. And I listed, oh, probably 2 pages of a Yellow Page. He said, now our job is to reinvent yourself and become that person. And what's interesting is that strategy was much more reflective, harder to think about, I'd rather go do something. But when the average Keller Williams office at the time was recruiting 5 to 6 a month, I was recruiting between 22 and 26 a month.

Oh, wow.

And we grew from number 6 to number 1 within 2 years. And real honestly, I never looked back. And so, it did not come from tactic. Tactics were important. It did not come from strategy. Strategy was important. But the foundational question is, who must I become in order to do that? So, in marriage, who must I become in order to be an amazing husband? Who must I become in order to be a great father? Who must I become in order to become a millionaire or whatever it is? the aspiration and the calling is on somebody's life, because it's out of the sense of who the what comes. That's why Jesus said, I'm the vine, you're the branches. If you abide in me, not if you try to— you never see an apple tree straining to produce apples.

Yeah.

If they're just— if they just be an apple tree, they, they produce apples. I think it's the same thing with us, is we produce fruit when we learn how to be something versus go do something. We're human beings, not human doings, right?

Yeah, for sure. Well, I also think this, um, I always tell the, my, our community recently is like the, and this came from these journal moments that I've had, but listening precedes being, being precedes doing, and doing precedes becoming. But yet we're so focused on becoming, we're not doing the other steps. And then we wonder why things aren't working out or why it seems chaotic and things of that nature. But, um, one of the things that I would, that I wanted to touch on real fast on that same subject matter is This becoming is always an evolution, right? So, you never, I don't feel like you ever really fully arrive, right?

That's right.

I am in process of trying to, on the financial front, become someone who can steward high levels of wealth in a very healthy way that blesses and creates overflow for other people. I'm someone who is currently in process of doing what it takes to set up next year's book up to be successful, right? Becoming someone that my My kids know like and trust, right? My family and friends know like and trust. And I say that all to say that who is the who's who is Lucas becoming right now?

Yeah, yeah. And that that is such a profound question. And I probably would have to pay you thousands of dollars to work with me for the next year on that question because you know I know I I think I get frustrated sometimes if I'm being like pull back the curtain of Lucas. I get frustrated and feel stressed because I want to know how the chapter ends. I don't want to stay present to the current sentence.

Mm-hmm.

And the currents— like when, when I started this book writing journey and, and several of our friends said, man, you got to do this and you got to do this and you got to do this. So I started chasing all these things and then realized, well, wait a second, I'm just going to get the book out and I'm not going to do anything else. And so for me, I know that I wake up every day and I'm going to be a student of life. I'm going to be a lover of God and lover of people and not love on my terms. I'm going to love on their terms. I think that sometimes, especially in the Christian world, we want people to conform to our standards before we love and like them.

Yep.

And so tomorrow I'm going to get myself on a plane and I'm going to go teach a bunch of powerful leaders in Portland. And so I— so who Lucas is becoming is he's becoming very present to current reality. And how do I wake up every day and with this mantra in my life, I alter the course of human history today. So here, the reason why this is the, uh, 3rd podcast I've been on today.

Yeah.

The reason why it's the 3rd podcast is because I'm going to alter the course of human history. Yeah, and it may— it's most likely not Stephen, but maybe somebody he's listening to. Maybe it shapes— maybe it's, it's just a little rock, a pebble in the path that diverts, uh, somebody going right instead of left. So I know for a fact that I'm called to alter the course of human history. I know for a fact that we're called to make disciples, and I have a very unique perspective of that. I don't think discipleship is say a prayer, accept Jesus in your heart, and then let me teach you some Bible verses that you live a better life. I think we make disciples of politicians who don't have a grid for Jesus.

Yeah.

I think we make— like, Gary Keller is the most influential man in, in real estate. I'm supposed to make disciple of him. How do I disciple the world? And I have a radically different approach on that because I, I don't know why it is that, by and large, as a pastor, people would come to my church if they had a grid for faith, or they had a family problem, or problem with their teenager, or marriage problems. But they never came to me because they wanted to fix the profit and loss statement.

Hmm.

I think we're supposed to make a difference there. Yeah, I think we're supposed to make a difference in how do I help your lead conversion and how do I help you build ClickFunnels and how do I help you do a business in a better way? How do I help you with your new music sound? I think we're supposed to make disciples like that. So who am I becoming? I'm becoming somebody who alters the course of human history by being very present to what current reality is.

I love that. Oh, it's so good. That's so good. Hey there. I hope you're enjoying the episode. Look, I love making great content for you, but more importantly, we like creating great So, before we get you back in the episode, I want to make you aware of the Aligned Leader Index, which you can find at stephenscoggins.com/leadership. This is a one-of-a-kind tool that I wish I had when I was actually building and scaling my own organizations. Why? Because a lot of times the bottlenecks that we think are actually in our way are not really the bottlenecks that are actually in our way. And what the cool thing about this specific thing is, it's going to let you know what the number one constraint is internally. The number one driver that's actually in your way or being disrupted, where chaos and dysfunction are showing up. And number 3, probably most important, where your leadership blind spot likely is. So if you're tired of your business actually running you and you want to take operational control over your organization, make sure you take complete advantage of the Align Leader Index. It takes 5 to 7 minutes and it'll give you instant clarification on the thing that's holding you back right now. Let's get back to the show. Well, look, I'm obviously super excited about Uncaged Leader. I was fortunate enough to get a pre-release kind of version of it.

It got to you?

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Awesome.

And super excited about it. And, you know, as I'm looking at things out in the marketplace, there's a lot of overlap in how we believe leadership should be because we didn't necessarily do it well before. And, you know, so—

And Stephen, I think if I— boy, I feel like the preacher thing all over me right now.

Let's go.

when Paul went to name the different offices of the church, he basically went to Judaism. Like, there's pastors, there's teachers, there's prophets, which all Judaism knew, even evangelists. Let me Judaize— Hellenize the Greeks, right? Bring them to— but he introduced a 5th term we never see in the Old Testament, that of apostles.

Hmm.

So, if you're going to create a church and create offices, and the peak of the office is this thing that we've never seen, never heard of before. What are we going to call it? It's interesting because it's not a Hebrew word. The apostle comes from the word apostolos, which is an actual Roman naval term for the first ship in the Roman armada. And what the apostle and the Roman armadas would do is an apostle would go into a foreign land, he would conquer it, and then what he would do is he'd start putting Roman roads Roman architecture, Roman culture, Roman music, Roman art. And he knew he did his job well as the apostle is when the Rome— when the, the Caesar would come and the king of Rome would come and step foot out onto this newly conquered land, he'd go, wow, is that Roman music I hear? Is that, is that our architecture? In fact, this feels a little like home.

Yeah.

Ready for us to be apostolic people? when the King of Glory steps his foot on this earth, will he go, wow, this feels a little bit like heaven because the apostles have done their work? That's going to require leadership and it's going to require a new paradigm for church and business and life and everything.

Yeah. I mean, I call that paradigm shift the integrated leader. And I feel like this integrated leader is being awoken right now. In my— on my best day, it's the mature lion and the mature lamb at the same time. I call it carrying strength and surrender simultaneously because that'll change the behavior in the marketplace. Yeah, that'll change how we handle our teams. It'll change how we handle our finances, how we handle our families, client base, how we handle the community, how we give, how we thrive, all these different types of things. And I know we believe in that mutually. And, you know, one of the things that I really appreciate that you did in the Uncaged Leader book, and I don't want to go super deep because I really want people to go and pick up the book. You know, it's a fantastic read. It's a highlighter book. People need a highlighter and a pen and a pad to kind of go alongside of it. Um, it— I say that it's one of these manuscripts that kind of reads you as you kind of read it along the way, right? I know the Bible is by definition that, that kind of book, but if you're— if you open your heart, you open your mind to it, you're going to see a lot of these things. But, you know, one of the things that you came up with is these archetypes.

Yeah.

Right? And how each of these archetypes thrive, survive, cause issues, all the things. You mind like hitting a couple of the archetypes and so maybe, maybe the audience can see themselves so they can kind of see the need to pick up the book?

Yeah. If we're gonna speak real general, like there, there's in my mind, you, you kind of actually referred to it earlier and I'm glad you kind of brought that back up. It's the person who's climbed the ladder of success only to realize the ladder's leaned up against the wrong wall. On the outside, your success, but your success of yesterday is causing you to be caged today. And it's going to be very difficult for you to say, "Hey, Stephen, I'm failing, and yet I'm worth millions." I'm yeah, right? And yeah, like there's there like I think that was me too. What's that?

That was me too at one time.

Yeah, and it's like you're you're you're succeeding, but you're not aligned, and you know you're out of alignment. I I think of the the different type of leaders that that are out that are listening today that. number one, undersell themselves and don't believe in themselves. So they have to go to fear and control. And I think that you and I have both probably been around leaders who lead toxic relation— toxic organizations. And it's command and control.

Unfortunately.

Yeah, it's command and control and it's my way or the highway. There's no debate, there's no curiosity, there's no questioning. And so I think of all these leaders, if I could help them, number one, be aware of what the programming is underneath it and then learn how to curate curiosity, because curiosity is always the front door to creation. And I think more and more leaders need to be creative. Instead of reactive, creative instead of just responsive. I like responsive leaders.

And what does that look like practically?

Yeah, so think about Steve Jobs. Okay, well, can you imagine trying to lead that guy?

No, I cannot.

Because he's supremely creative. Most leaders don't have the chops to lead that type of guy. Uh, what, what do you— you know, uh, Albert Einstein apparently was going to school and had a leading scientist in Germany tell him that all scientific discoveries have been discovered. Well, what if Albert Einstein had accepted that instead of being curious? What if that isn't true? So I think that the what-if game is the most powerful thing, except with my programming, my what-if games usually turn very negative. You know, what if my wife's late because she's in a car accident? What if she's broken down on the side of the road? What if I lose all my money? What if that is the first of a cascade of bills that are going to come in and my money scarcity shows, shows up. So, I'm going to curate curiosity in the world. What if what I'm believing isn't serving me any longer? What if the greatest inventions are around the corner? Howard Schultz came back and was leading Starbucks at its— like, it was on the rise. Everybody is now talked into paying $5 or $6 for a cup of coffee. When I was growing up, like, that's crazy. And he realized something. He walked into his stores, like, wow, it just doesn't feel the same. So, he literally shut down all the Starbucks stores across the nation. He stepped back in and started teaching culture again. He said, we're gonna shut down for a full day. We want people to have an experience, not just a cup of coffee. And Starbucks then exponentially increased. That's curiosity. I think of— there's a guy, Spencer Silver. I don't know that you've ever heard of him, but he was hired by 3M as a chemist.

Okay.

To develop the world's strongest glue. And he spent literally millions of dollars and man-hour after man-hour, man-hour. And he developed this glue that honestly, it would— 2 pieces of paper would stick together, but then you could just peel it apart. It was like, oh my gosh, visible failure. Fast forward it 7 years, they shelved it. Most expensive failure in 3M history. And then there was a dude sitting in church one night trying to, uh, book— uh, he was in choir practice, he was bookmarking his hymnal, and he was like, we need to have something that could make paper stick to paper but not ruin the paper that it sticks to.

Yeah.

Therefore, Post-it Notes was invented because somebody got curious instead of judgmental. Because once I judge something as a failure, I kill off all other possibilities. Yeah, judgment kills always. And once I label somebody— and I think we do this as Christians— oh, they're just, they're lost. Why do we put that label on anybody? That is, that is—

I can actually— I feel like I have an opinion about that. I feel like we do that so we can feel more important about self.

I, I 100,000% agree with that. And so once I label anybody anything, I kill off all their possibilities. So once you're a Democrat Once you're a Democrat, once you're a Republican, once you're a Christian, once you're a Muslim, once you are a Jew, once you are a Hindu, once we put a label on something, we kill off all other possibilities. What would it look like for our leaders to wake up every day instead of labeling everybody? He's hard to coach. He's— she's hard to manage. She's hyper-emotional. He's super argumentative. Why don't we be curious? What else could this mean? And explore possibilities? Because then I might be on the front door of a a Post-it note. I might be on the front door of an Apple. I might be on a Post-it on the front door of a Starbucks turning their culture around. Yeah.

You know what's really interesting about those, just those examples you just gave? One, they all come from negativity, internal negativity.

Yeah, sure.

Two, they all absolve themselves of stepping in and actually leading.

Yeah, that's right.

Right. Because in order to get somebody to do X, Y, and Z, I, I had the situation, um, I've shared it publicly a couple of times, so I won't spend a lot of time here, but I had this situation where one of my leaders had burned through the same role over the course of a year, 6 different people.

Oh, wow. Okay.

So I was like, okay, this is, this is a lot. So on the 6th one, they wanted to come in and say, hey, I need to find somebody to fill this role. I'm like, something's up. No, no. I tell you what, go grab that team member, come into my office. We're gonna sit down and talk this through.

Yeah.

And I asked the team member, I said, I'm just curious, what is it? Do you think your role is? Like, what do you think you're doing? Just— I'd love to hear. Just give me a day in the life of your role. I'm just curious. And they were like, well, I'm doing, you know, I'm supposed to come in, I'm supposed to do this, this, this, this, and this and that and this and that and this. And I do it this way. And I'm like, oh, okay, interesting. Have you ever been trained to do this, this, this, and this? And they're like, well, no, I'd never seen that before. I'm like, okay, interesting. Okay, cool. Well, thank you, John Doe. Can you go ahead and run back to your office for a moment? I want to talk to your leader, your team lead for a minute. Team lead, dude, he hasn't actually been trained to do the 5 things that we hired him to do. He's doing all these other activities that he thinks he's supposed to do. Yeah. I need you to go pull his folder. I want to see that you actually trained him. And sure enough, the folder was basically empty because the leader's like, I'm busy. I got things going on. So like, we run in these situations where, because we're moving so fast, we're not actually executing with excellence. And then that breeds 10 other problems that one focused time of energy could have gone into, like, really solidify this thing.

Yeah.

You know, and for me, and I know you talk a lot about this in the book, which is why I'm bringing it up. I had to, in my own example, because I was only aware of that moment because I had done it wrong myself, right? I had to come up with this idea or this thing to move on from, which is I had to stop pretending. Like, I had to stop pretending. So in what ways have you seen, uh, have you had to stop pretending? And in what ways could we help other leaders stop pretending and start being effective?

Yeah. Oh gosh, I love that because I, I, my name is Lucas. I am, by the way, somebody asked me, why am I qualified to write this book? And I said, well, the truth is it's just one beggar telling another beggar where to go find bread. I'm very much on this journey. And I love in my organizations to say, well, if I don't look, maybe it'll get better. And this is what I found out: small problems become big problems until you run to the problem, right? Ignoring things doesn't make it go away. Now, there's sometimes strategically, I won't respond immediately because they'll self-discover.

Because we need to breathe.

Yeah. However, I run to trouble, always run to trouble, right?

Yeah.

I think that I go back to that right now, at least in the season that I find myself in, I'm using every emotional trigger as a time of self-reflection.

Mm-hmm.

Like, if I get anxious, or if I get fearful, or if I get angry, or if I get annoyed, I'm doing a lot of journaling. And I'm looking at my own processes on pieces of paper, which for me, that changes how I relate to them because that like, well, that's so illogical. But where did I pick up that belief system? Where did I— like, I was just coaching a salesperson right before this call. He goes, well, I hate that online tool. I said, why is that? He says, because it takes me out of talking to the person. I said, so do you have a fundamental belief that in order to sell something, you have to talk? And he goes, oh, I hate that you just said that, but yeah.

Yeah.

Because great sales is actually more about listening and understanding than the scripts and the great closing lines that you're used He just loves to hear himself talk.

Yeah.

And so I think for me right now, Stephen, I'm in a real season, especially the closer it comes to this book launch. I don't know when exactly this podcast, but we're— as we're recording it, we're about a week out from launch. As it, as it comes out and people are asking about the story model and they're asking about the internal programming and the preferences. And I was on a podcast last week. She goes, how do I know I'm self-aware? I'm like, the fact that you're asking that question is the point of my book. Yeah, the fact that you feel that tension, like maybe I'm not as self-aware as I thought I was.

Yeah.

So I'm in a season right now that I actually have a full-time therapist that I've said I've got— I'm releasing a book and I know that I'm probably going to be sent in this way that God seems to work is when you release something, you get tested in the very thing that you're releasing. Yeah. And so as pressure gets put on me, I want to be very mindful of— I want to examine that and talk about that and process through that. And is that belief from God? Is that belief from my heart, my own hurt and pain, and my own desire to protect myself? What need am I going for? How can I be more whole and full of integrity moving forward? Because if we're going to alter the course of human history, brother, we have to be a whole different version of who we are today.

Yeah, amen to that. Amen to that. You know what, it's funny, we, we, um, I was asking about some of the, the different archetypes and We, we went on a whole nother journey that I just enjoyed. Tell me, tell me a little bit about the, uh, the protector and like the peacemaker, because they seem to be opposites.

Yeah, yeah. So I, I know for me, like, the peacemaker is, is one that I'm well all too— like, sometimes I'm not writing about everybody else.

I call that self-abandonment.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I think I grew up with the, the whole notion of apologize and make it better, apologize and make it better, just whatever it takes from point A to P. do it if you have to sacrifice yourself. And what that— that sounds kind of noble a little bit, but what that does is you, you have to lie a lot.

Mm-hmm.

Because a problem is a problem whether you acknowledge it or not. It's a moment ago, it's pretend. Let's pretend like everything's okay. There's not an elephant in the room. The emperor has no clothes and nobody's gonna say anything about it. So I'm gonna make peace at all costs. That's not peace. That, that, that their peace is rooted and grounded in deep truths, right? Yeah. I think like, so I know the people who have— I could think of some right now that, that have positions of leadership, but they spend all their life making peace.

Yeah.

Therefore they accomplish nothing. And honestly, the truth is many times great leadership agitates.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's right. You know, it was interesting. I was just thinking, uh, one of the things, one of the journeys I've been on this, this last year as being a healing, reforming, whatever, self-abandonment, overacting, overreacting, not overreacting, being over-action-oriented. Like, because of peace, I want everybody to be happy. I want everybody joyful. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, just do that. We won't worry about it this time. You know, just don't let it happen again.

Yeah.

Or, hey, I'm reviewing documents and you know what? I know we're under a lot of pressure. I know you're under pressure. I need to go ahead. I'll just go ahead and sign Yeah. And reality is every single time I've ever done that in prior seasons, it's always cost me far more substantially because I didn't want to sit in that uncomfortable place for any real length of time. And, you know, in the last few weeks, I've been negotiating a handful of deals on a couple of different fronts. And for the first time in my life, I said, no, I'm going to sit with this. It has to be right. The details have to be there. Like, they've got to be right. Yeah. Which has required my nervous system to stop freaking out so I can breathe and sit still, you know?

Yeah. I, and I, I know, like, um, just get super personal, like in my marriage, it's like, I want, I don't like discomfort. I don't like conflict. I don't like anything. So whatever the fastest way to get out of it, I tend to take, which does not, that, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't serve you. It's not a, it's not a healthy way to live, live marriage. So I, so I think, think of that type of leader who is constantly trying to make peace. Well, that, that's potentially a problem. Uh, the protector, I, you know, I think that a lot of us, um, I grew up in a home where for a period of time my dad wasn't around. He faced some legal issues, and so he wasn't with us. And well, my mom's full-blooded Korean, and I'm 9 years old, and I'm the man of the house. Well, That's, that's a problem.

Yeah.

No, no 9-year-old should ever be the man of the house, and no man should ever tell their kid, okay, you're the man of the house now, because that's a kid.

Yeah.

So you grow up with a warped sense of what it means to be the man of the house, and you grow up with more responsibility, for that matter. That's right, with a responsibility that really isn't yours. I've got, uh, I've got a 4-year-old grandson. I can't imagine in 5 years for him to be the man of anything. Yeah, I want him to be childish. I want him to enjoy his childhood and be the carefree kid that creates anything, that has fun with everything. And so I think all these archetypes just basically are stories that we've told ourselves in order to survive the world in which we find ourselves in. The world's a very— I mean, the world is a very cruel and hard place. And so however we had to survive, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I think that's such a good reminder. By the way, I was 9 years old too when I was kind of given that same role.

Got it.

Yeah, yeah. Um, so it's really wild, and I've You know what's really funny is I've spent the last, call it 41 years since I was 9 years old, like unraveling the fact that I was simply just trying to save my grandmother.

Yeah.

Like the, at the core, at the core wound.

Yeah.

Right. I was chasing validation from the person I love most who left my life earlier than I expected.

Yeah.

And then went on a, you know, crazy journey kind of from there on out. Before we get to the last question, I want to give everybody a chance to go get the book. We're going to release this episode during launch week, so that should be really exciting. So where can everybody find out more about what you're working on and the book?

Yeah, they could go to either the website, theuncagedleader.com, which is being revamped even as we speak, or they could go to any place where they buy books. I know that a lot of emphasis has been having people go to Barnes Noble because we really want to flood bookshelves and what have you. But, but pretty much anywhere you could get books. But The Uncaged Leader is our website and Uh, love to help people in any way we can.

Yeah, dude, dude, I'm super excited for you, man. I, I pray this is going to be just a beautiful, amazing season. Uh, one of the things I've been saying now for, um, probably the better part of 2 years is some of the most important voices on the earth have yet to be heard.

I agree with that.

Right? And I think we're seeing, um, we're seeing a falling away from guru culture.

Yeah.

Um, because of lack of broken trust and all these different circumstances that has come out over the last decade. of people overselling people, underserving them?

I was shocked when I got out of the ministry world to realize the vast, vast majority of the people that I would come with that had no church background and had no church affiliation desire, they were deeply hungry for spirituality and they were deeply hungry for God. They just couldn't find him in the church. And with the organization— and I'm not— this is not a knock against church. I love pastors. The pastors are doing the best they can. And they're, they're going with the knowledge that they have. But I'm, I'm telling you, there, there are people who will sit next to me in a plane, find out I'm in real estate, and then we end up talking about God because they're hungry for God. And I'm not even steering the conversation that way. I'm just like with you, I'm just vibing with wherever you want to go, we'll talk about it.

Yeah.

And, um, I— here's the thing is I think Christians need to learn how to lead with love and lead with contribution, not lead with a spirituality that may not be really God. Yeah.

Yeah.

In fact, the only people in the Bible that I see that led with a God thing were the Pharisees, and they didn't fare so well.

Yeah. No, 1,000%. I, I'm 100% with you on that. Um, it's part of the reason why, um, I stayed out on the, of the faith side of things for a really long time. I wanted to just kind of operate over here in the business world because I didn't like what I was seeing.

Yeah.

And then I realized that through my team, my team came to me and like, um, you do realize That God, when you're, when you're just being you, Jesus, God, anything divine, like falls out of you. It's very clear that you spend a lot of time with him and the things that grieve you also grieve him. And it's like now trying to bridge the gap of bringing all this together, which is again where I, where I think Uncaged Leadership is gonna be really successful.

Yeah.

As we breed this new level of leader called the integrated leader, I really think it's gonna be really, really powerful, dude.

I really do.

Yeah.

We're, we're Appreciate that.

Yeah, man. Like, I'm excited. I know we're out of time, but where can everybody find out more about you? You have a favorite social channel or anything you want people to come check out? Yeah.

Facebook, Instagram.

Okay. All the places.

All the places. Yeah. So every once in a while it's like, do we want to start TikTok? I don't know that I'm, I'm 59 years old. I don't know that TikTok will listen to a 59-year-old, but you never know. You know what?

You might be surprised for these early days.

I'm just not going to do that dance though. You don't want to see this man dance. I'm not doing no TikTok dance.

No, TikTok's far beyond Not dancing. What I have noticed on TikTok that seems to work for our community is authentic, punchy, quick tips.

That's right. That's right.

Right. And you got your, obviously you're well-versed in leadership and real estate and investments and all the things. So you're going to, you'll win no matter what you do.

And so, Stephen, one thing I want to say before we shut, close this conversation, and thank you for your generosity. I want to be real clear to your audience. I'm giving away 100% of the profits of this book to stopping human Trafficking. So wow, this is a cause to help leaders get free because of a bigger cause to help some 12-year-old girl that is being held against her will servicing. And the typical trafficking clientele is a 40 to 50-year-old white man, which is you and me. Yeah. And so I heard somebody tell me a long time ago, do something about it. And God's blessed us. We don't the money. Our money's fine. We're living very, very comfortably. And so. I'm on a mission to sell a million copies of a book, and I have no path, buddy, other than getting on podcasts like this to tell people, go buy a bunch of books. If Jesus could change the world with 12 knuckleheads, I think we could change the world together.

We all stand a chance.

We see a shot at it. I'm not Jesus, nor is my message the gospel, but I do, do believe that if we sell a million copies, I'm giving away $3 to $4 million stopping human trafficking. So 100% of the profits are going to be given away. And so buy the book. Give it to leaders, give out 10 copies. Every penny will go to stopping human trafficking.

Dude, that's amazing. And when the time comes for you to write that big check, I got— I know several organizations, uh, such as Safe House Project and others that would, would love to have that as help.

So love it.

Awesome, brother. Well, I appreciate you, brother. I can't get— can't thank you enough.

Thank you so much, Stephen.

Okay guys, that's gonna do it for this episode of One Part Lion, One Part Lamb. You know what to do, all the things that, as much as I hate even asking, it actually helps 5-star rankings on all the audio platforms with comments. Like, share, subscribe, all the things. But more importantly, every now and again, we'll do an episode. Maybe you've been listening for a long time or watching for a long time, and you maybe, maybe you haven't shared an episode yet. And maybe something about this episode says, hey, I know Bobby down the street or Jane down the street, and she really needs to hear this episode. If you don't do anything else, just, just share this with them. Let them know you care about them and say, hey, look, I heard this and I thought of you. Until then, we'll see you in the next one.

God bless.

Take care. Peace.